The Little Russians, who inhabit the entire South of Russia, and from whose stock the famous Cossacks are sprung, differ most radically from their northern brothers. They are the excitable, hot-blooded, dare-devil Russians. In type the men are fine-looking and handsome almost without exception, and the women often exceedingly beautiful. Their language differs from other Russian speech by the extreme softness of the dialect (which is not unlike Serbo-Croatian), and their music and poetry are the finest in the Slav race. In the past the Little Russians were divided into many small and independent clans who outvied each other in reckless warlike enterprises. Of course the wonderful Cossacks always took the lead. They still occupy their original home on the Don and in Caucasia, and furnish the _élite_ of the Russian Army, even as they once were the flower of the Little Russian tribes. Moreover, they preserved to the very last their freedom and their privileges in Russia. To-day one is accustomed to look upon the Cossacks as merely a body of men especially devoted to the Tsar, but, as a matter of fact, the Cossack people have had a most chequered and interesting past. Once they formed an independent warrior-nation, feared and courted by their neighbours; and so secure in their strength did they feel, that they even dared to answer the Turkish Sultan’s demand for submission with a letter of taunting derision (the well-known Cossack Ultimatum). They played a great part in the history of Russia, and each Russian ruler in turn endeavoured to assure himself of their support. After their final subjection to Russia (1851) the Cossacks gradually exchanged their political importance for their present military value. Tolstoi wrote about them as follows—though his remarks really apply to the whole of the Little Russian people: “Many years ago the ancestors of the Cossacks, who were ‘Old Believers,’ fled from Russia and settled on the banks of the Terek (Caucasus). They are a handsome, prosperous and warlike Russian population, who still retain the faith of their fathers. Dwelling among the Chechentzes, the Cossacks intermarried with them and acquired the usages, customs and mode of living of these mountaineers. But their Russian tongue and their ancient faith they preserved in all their pristine purity.... To this day the kinship between certain Cossack families and the Chechentzes is clearly recognizable and a love of freedom and idleness, a delight in raiding and warfare are their chief characteristics. Their love of display in dress is an imitation of the Circassians. The Cossack procures his admirable weapons from his mountaineer neighbours, and also buys or ‘lifts’ his best horses from them. All Cossacks are fond of boasting of their knowledge of the Tatar tongue. At the same time this small Christian people considers itself highly developed, and the Cossack only as a full human being. They despise all other nationalities....